Sunshine makes a great transportation fuel

Sunshine is San Diego’s greatest, most equitable and endless natural resource. Solar photovoltaic (PV) systems are now blossoming across our county like flowers on a sunny spring day. We San Diegans, from homeowners to our largest corporations and civic institutions, are discovering that harvesting sunshine makes great economic and environmental sense.

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors and the city of San Diego are on the right track, leading the way for solar PV. I applaud them for their earnest efforts in making solar PV accessible to all households, giving consumers a choice and with the end result of lowering utility costs.

It’s time for SDG&E to join our county, cities and our citizens in the most meaningful of ways, by offering on-bill financing and fractional ownership models for their customers who wish to buy or invest in a solar PV system.

I am excited about solar PV lowering utility bills and reducing the emissions of our buildings. However, the greatest value of solar PV is that it presents us, for the first time, with real options to help us solve our most vexing national issues caused by our addiction to oil.

What are those issues? National security and defense costs, measured in both blood and dollars. Major cities like San Diego having unhealthy air quality, with 70% of total emissions coming from the oil we burn in our cars and trucks. And our national and family budgets siphoned off by the ever-increasing price of gasoline, as we slowly, voluntarily, export our wealth from our wallets and purses to foreign countries, some that are hostile to us.

We are near, at, or beyond peak oil supplying 600 million gross consumers worldwide thus far. Try to imagine the world instability and conflict when the world has 2 billion to 3 billion gross consumers as China, India and others modernize and there is not enough oil. Now try to imagine that instability and conflict multiplied with climate change.

The inertia of the status quo is a powerful foe of change. Its strength and certainty comes from the knowledge of today and yesteryear. The defenders of the status quo love to throw stones at the uncertainty of tomorrow from the security of the front porch of today, no matter how decrepit and dangerous the condition of that porch. As they say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

It’s broken, OK? Really broken!

How does solar PV help us get off oil? Solar PV shines brightest when used as a transportation fuel. Most major auto manufacturers are now making plug-in hybrid or plug-in electric cars. You’re seeing them in ever-increasing numbers on our city streets. Several thousands of these vehicles are already on the road in San Diego County and their owners love them. Statistics gathered by the California Center for Sustainable Energy show that more than one-third of these plug-in owners are generating their own electricity with solar PV.

They’re making their own fuel for their own car on the rooftops of their own home. They’re doing so at a cost that is 15% of the cost of driving on gasoline and fixed in price forever as sunshine knows not of inflation. These owners are the pioneers, the front-line patriots of the energy revolution. They are showing us the road to the solution of our most vexing national problem, getting off oil.

When we drive a plug-in powered by sunshine, we are making meaningful progress in eliminating our addiction for oil; we begin cleaning our air by eliminating emissions from our cars and oil refineries; we begin to keep our money in our wallets and purses, enriching our family budgets; and we create local jobs and local companies. We begin to rediscover what freedom and optimism feels like.

This great combination of plug-in car and solar PV can work for most San Diego families. With vision, partnership and leadership from our governments and SDG&E, San Diegans can lead the way for the rest of our nation.

Sunshine is the transportation fuel that can end our addiction to oil.

Norby, a Carlsbad resident, is a San Diego County planning commissioner. He and his wife, Julie, received the 2007 Energy Excellence Award from the California Center for Sustainable Energy for the construction of their net-zero energy home in Carlsbad. They have driven more than 75,000 miles powered by sunshine in their two plug-in electric vehicles.

Norby, a Carlsbad resident, is a San Diego County planning commissioner. He and his wife, Julie, received the 2007 Energy Excellence Award from the California Center for Sustainable Energy for the construction of their net-zero energy home in Carlsbad. They have driven more than 75,000 miles powered